Yeah. I still didn't know if it would be good or bad. I didn't know which way it would go.

The good was having done something great for my country, for the guys, for the people in New York. It was closure.

And the bad?

He was their prophet. Now we killed him, and I have to worry about this forever. Al Qaeda, especially these days, is 99 percent talk. But that 1 percent of the time they do shit. It's bad. They're capable of horrific things.

We started de-briefing and that's when they started bringing up the idea of the Witness Protection Program. And they still are.

They told me they could get me a job driving a beer truck in Milwaukee. like any whistleblower in the Mafia. We'd lose everything.

Imagine tomorrow that there's a story somewhere in the national press. Here are the guys who were on the mission. You hear their real names. You're on all the jihadi websites. What do you think is going to happen?

The command would try to round up the families and get them somewhere safe.

But that's it. That's totally reactive. If someone attacks a family, you're not going to have time to assemble a group to go get them. Who would they send anyway?

I told my ex-wife to put the kids in the tub and grab the shotgun. Put it against the wall, so it doesn't hurt your shoulder, and when they get to the door, shoot at the door, shit like that, until I can reinforce the door. Basically she needs to barricade herself in until the cops arrive. And even if the cops arrive and the threats are serious. They're not going to be a match for these guys, either, if they came at my family with what they are capable of.

She has a packed suitcase with all the things the family needs for four days, and it just sits there. My kids have a fucking bolt bag — that's what I call it — it's packed. And if something comes out, I call her, [tell her to] get in the fucking car, grab the suitcases, and just go.

And what about you? What's the plan for you?

I don't really have a plan. As arrogant as it sounds, I'm not afraid of these fucking guys.

Like you're ready for anything. "Everything and anything" is the quote for the SEALS, right?

Right.

But you're not ready for this, right?

I don't have the resources.

If you had the resources, what would you do?

I would build a high-security house, with a high security fence. Change their names, move them somewhere, and watch my route when I go see them.

But then you're going to have paparazzi and all that shit.

Yeah.

You ever dealt with that?

No. I don't know how to deal with that.

The big mission changed a lot of attitudes, around the command. A certain number of guys got picked. But because the other guys didn't get picked, there's a lot of jealousy. There were suspicions about whether anyone was selling out.

I deployed again to Afghanistan to show I wasn't a douchebag, that I'm still part of this team and believe in what we're doing.

My feeling now has changed, which is part of the reason I got out. A lot of the missions they're going on are going to be a waste of really good lives.

When I started separating from the life in March — after my deployment — it was the jump trip, the training jumps. The more I got away from it, I started to realize that even jumping is like, Shit, that's kind of dangerous. You put a bundle on, and you jump out of a plane with a 500-pound barrel attached to you. I don't have a desire to do that anymore. And then I started thinking about the combat, and, Holy shit, we were just sticking it out there for years. This was a dangerous job. And the further I got away, [I thought] Holy shit, these guys are crazy.

I was burned out. I'm done. I left SEALS on [a] Friday. They're starting to see guys leave, and we're going to see more of it.

The government doesn't want us talking about anything. So, basically, I leave the Navy and I can't say anything. Here I am without a degree and sixteen years of doing nothing.

I'm sorry for the last sixteen years I've been doing this, and I didn't have a chance to read the same book everyone else is reading to get a fucking degree. But that's the fear of not being marketable.

So you want to have a degree, what else?

Health care is a need. I still have the same bills I had in the Navy. I need to find employment.

I'd like to do something that has nothing to do with my past. I don't want to carry a gun. I don't have a need for excitement anymore. Honestly.

In five years what I'd like to do is have a platform for guys who are in the same position as me right now. To be able to come out and get work in a field they want, and then I'd like to have a foundation for the families as well. Families of guys from SEAL Team 6 that have died.

And you're just going to say you're a SEAL — that's the plan?

The term "SEAL Team 6" is going to be declassified, and I'm thinking it technically already is because of the people saying it so much.

It's like you've got talented, dedicated, brave guys. I mean, there is nothing classified about that. What do you think they're concerned about? Giving the enemy information? It's all out there.

Yeah, I don't understand. The secrecy is kind of dead. The Pakistanis got to comb that house after we were there. They could tell everything that happened.

What do your kids know — did you talk to them about this mission?

They know I shoot bad guys. When I got back, I was sitting on the couch one day, and all the news is covering this. My kid says his name out loud, and I said: "You need to not say that name ever again, anywhere to anybody. It's a bad name. It's a curse name. So we were sitting there again, and his face came up, and my kid said, so proud, "Dad, look, it's Poopyface."

A year after Bin Laden's death, I had the kids up at a water park. We were getting changed to go play in the water. I was watching CNN, and they were saying, "So now we're taking viewer emails. Do you remember where you were when you found out Osama bin Laden was dead?" And I was thinking, "Of course, I remember exactly where I was. I was in his bedroom, looking down at his body."